Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Matron has been in full-throttle engagement with Actual Students, of all sort. Beware: she of seamless prose and and pithy-punch lines has none tonight. This blog post is largely a flare in the night to readers: "over here, over here!" Still here.

So . . . for those unschooled in the ways of, well, schooling, here's a snapshot of the Community College Finals Week Experience.

It's okay to watch the TV show. Pretty much sums it up.

Student who wrote 2000 word rough draft of final paper emails to say she's been 'sick' so final version isn't 'best work.' She turns in a 309 word 'paper' (assignment calls for 2600). The Matron wonders what happened to the rest of that text? Dog ate the keyboard?

Four days after final papers are due, email appears from wayward student who has turned in only 1/4 of assigned word throughout the entire semester: "Hey Mary am i missing some stuff or what? lets meet up to fgure it out." This is not the Matron's spelling of 'figure.'

Student in online course explains her paper is not in because she just had a baby, then her apartment was robbed and all baby items and college textbooks -- stolen! Hmmmm . . . sniffs the Matron. Too far-fetched not to be true. So she excuses the new mama (she thinks). Guess who the Matron just happens to see on the local news that night? You guessed it. Poor victimized new -mama student pointing to the spot where her MISSING COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS used to be!

For readers not already immersed in techno-education lingo? There are online classes and not online classes. The latter are: seated courses, on-the-ground courses, on-campus courses, traditional courses. Nobody can seem to decide on Official Name. So the Matron is now calling these her "real life classes."

Student sends in long email asking for extension because her grandfather dies. Kind Matron! Matron asks only for a copy of the obituary and then, groovy, excuses ahoy. Student admits that her grandfather did NOT die and there is no obituary. Her boyfriend's grandfather died and she can send that one. Matron (God bless her) says okay. Student admits that boyfriend's grandfather didn't die but boyfriend's FRIEND's grandfather died and they were helping with the funeral -- a lot.

Matron is asked to do independent study of sorts affording student academic credit for life experience, a task for which she will be compensated. She finds out that dollar amount for her valuable hours of personalized assessment and instruction: $75. Total.

When not grading papers these past few days, the Matron takes small breaks by reading about employment opportunities outside of education. See previous entry.

Student turns in paper in which not one single line is not plagiarized from the most obvious sources possible, a feat affirmed by the nifty anti-plagiarism software the Matron informs all of her students that she is USING. When confronted, student replies that she forgot about that software and there, is her mistake.